


No Fear of Falling

by st_aurafina



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Dog Cops, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy's not afraid to let go and fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Daisy/Kara, after a hard day of saving the world sometimes superhero girlfriends just want to Netflix and chill.
> 
> Thanks to lilacsigil for the beta.

It was a weird place for a meet-cute: freefalling through clouds, chasing some weirdo with a jetpack who thought he could do a snatch-and-grab on the nav system of SHIELD's new stealth drone. Kudos to that guy, thought Daisy, as she cut through the clouds, her body an arrow. Gravity was going to bring her right to him. Unlike the bad guy and his dinky jetpack, Daisy wasn't afraid to fall. 

"Don't panic! I've got you!" The voice came out of nowhere. Daisy had good spatial orientation and she knew where everything was in this scenario: the plane above her, the jetpack guy below. This voice came horizontally through the cloudbank. Daisy rolled mid-air, and saw a blur of blue and red streaking towards her. It resolved into a woman, arms outstretched. 

"Wait!" she gasped, before their bodies collided, and the woman scooped her up in warm strong arms like a romantic hero. Then they were both moving at approximately light speed, out of the clouds and down to the ground. The woman came to a stop inches before they hit the ground, in a breathtaking deceleration that almost launched Daisy's breakfast burrito into its own freefall. 

"Jeesus – holy – what the hell?" Daisy rolled out of the woman's arms and onto the ground, then came up with her weapon drawn. 

The woman put her hands on her hips, hanging casually in the air as if gravity didn't matter, as if Daisy didn't have a gun on her. "Don't worry, you're safe now." Then she looked a little closer. "Why are you pointing a gun at me?" 

"What the actual hell did you do?" said Daisy. She didn't lower the gun.

The woman made a face. "Rescued you?" she said, dubiously, as if she didn't quite believe herself. She waved her hands downwards. "Because of the plummeting and the imminent death?" 

Daisy's radio buzzed in her ear: Mack's voice asking her to check in. There was the barest hint of hysteria in his voice, which meant that he at least half expected her to be a pancake on the ground. 

"This is Quake, I'm fine but I'm grounded. I think I tagged the bozo with a tracker though, so Mockingbird should have a signal on him." 

"Copy that, Quake. You need an assist?" 

Daisy eyeballed the woman, and holstered her gun. "That's a negative. I'll find my own way home, Mack. Thanks." She pointed over her shoulder to the pack strapped on her back. "Hey, Cape, do you recognise this?" 

The woman shook her head. She had cute little red boots on, and her hair was really messed up. Daisy was finding it hard to stay angry at someone in red knee-high boots and flyaway hair from actually flying. Still, the point had to be made. 

"This is my chute. I didn't need a rescue – I was working. Chasing a suspect, who is now a fugitive with eleven million dollars worth of microcircuitry. Honestly, did you not see the jetpack guy?"

"I was kind of focused on you falling out of the sky," said the woman. "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. Are you with the DEO? I really don't want to be in more trouble with them." 

Daisy ran a list of acronyms through her mind – why so many acronyms, military people? – and came up with the right agency. "Oh, the alien guys? No, that's not me, don't worry. You're in the clear with them, as far as I know." 

The woman exhaled with relief, and Daisy laughed. "You're new at this, aren't you? I recognise that 'I fucked up on the first day' expression. You want the secret to getting through that stage?" 

"Okay?" said the woman. "I guess I'm open to any advice." 

"It's never as bad as it looks. That's the secret," said Daisy. "If you don't start flapping your hands and pretending you made some big error, it usually turns out it's not as bad as you first thought." 

The woman winced. "First mission, I caused an oil slick and nearly incinerated the harbour."

That was familiar. Daisy looked again, taking in the costume and the insignia, put it together with the location. "National City - oh, you're that new one, um, what do they call you? Supergirl?" 

Supergirl nodded, then smiled, bashful. "I didn't choose it," she said. "Quake is a really cool codename, though."

Daisy felt for her. "Supergirl is good! It's inspiring – maybe they'll make you an action figure. More female action figures – always a win." She looked around herself; they'd landed in an open field, surrounded by farmland. It was going to be quite the hike to the airfield. "Any chance of a ride out of here?" she said. 

Supergirl grinned and held out her arms. "Sure!" 

When Daisy walked onto the airfield, May was waiting on the runway. "Don't hit the showers just yet; you're not finished," she said. "Take Fitz to CatCo, we need some footage erased." 

"An agent's work is never done," said Daisy, but she cheerfully drove all the way into the city with Fitz. 

"You should have seen the jetpack go boom," Fitz said. "Bobbi basically punched him out of the sky, it was amazing." He was tinkering with something while they drove. 

"So, what's the problem at CatCo?" asked Daisy. National City was a nice place, she'd decided. The drivers were basically polite, viewed from the perspective of someone who'd learned to drive in LA, and the superheroes were super cute. Supergirl was adorable, especially when she blushed. 

"A Catco source livetweeted the jetpack coming out of the sky," said Fitz. "Which is fine, SHIELD can write that off as space junk, but we're pretty sure they got Bobbi's face on camera. Hasn't shown up on any broadcasts yet, so Coulson thinks they're holding it for the evening edition or something." 

At CatCo, they were met at the door by a security team, but Daisy bulled through them, towing Fitz behind her. "How far in do we have to get? I'm assuming CatCo has one hell of a firewall," she said, in the elevator.

"As far in as possible," he said, and powered up his device. "Yeah, the firewall is a thing of beauty, but inside the building, the network is a bit more vulnerable." 

The elevator doors pinged, and Daisy surged through another wall of security, now flanked by a regiment of lawyers. Fitz followed close in her wake, with his device in his pocket. Daisy didn't stop moving until she came face to face with a tiny angry woman. She pulled up to a halt, stopped by the smoking fury on the woman's face, like she was using pure rage as a forcefield. 

"Get out of my building!" said the tiny but terrifying person. "Or, come in and give me an interview, but those images are mine and you can't make me give them up. Cat Grant never gives it away, not for free. And definitely not for shady government types."

Behind the tiny angry woman clustered her entourage, and a member of her entourage was blushing adorably while trying to hide behind her tablet. Daisy gave her a wave, and Cat swung around to see who had caught her attention. 

"Kara Danvers!" she said, advancing on the poor girl who looked as if she wanted to fall through the floor. "Did you leak company information to a shady government organisation?" 

Kara Danvers backed up until she bumped into the guy behind her. "No, no, Ms Grant, I would never!" 

"Chillax, Cat-lady," said Daisy. "Come on, Kara is too smart to do anything that obvious – I really don't think you're the kind of woman to employ idiots. Kara and I, we're kind of buddies, and I didn't think I'd catch up with her while I was in National City. Shady government agents don't have a lot of down time." 

"You wanted to hang out?" said Kara, and blushed more. "I would love to! I mean, if you had time. Heck, if I had time." 

Cat's gaze moved to Kara again, her eyes calculating. "I see," she said.

"All right, we can go now," said Fitz. "I've got what I need."

"You've got what?" said Cat, urgently. "What have you got?" 

"Data extraction, ma'am," said Daisy. "It's all legal. Your lawyers should have the suppression order now." She winked at Kara, and took Fitz by the elbow. 

"Hang on," he said, as they were leaving. "Were you hitting on that girl?" 

Daisy laughed. "I don't know. Maybe." She took out her phone and called CatCo. "Hi, could I have Kara Danvers, please?" The plane might be held over a night; May was fussy, especially taking it on short hops. Maybe she had time to meet up and hang out. 

Later that night, Daisy juggled take-out bags to press the buzzer at Kara's apartment. The door clicked open, and she hurried up the stairs. 

Kara threw open the door. "Um," she said. "Hey." She raised her hand as if to wave, then realised where she was and stood out of the way for Daisy to come in. "Thanks for coming around." 

Daisy piled the bags on the counter. "It's the least I could do – I didn't mean to drag you into trouble." She leaned against the counter and took a deep breath. "And, listen, I want to apologise – I feel crappy about using you to stall inside the CatCo building. My partner needed time to get his assignment done, and you were right there, and the professional instincts just kicked in. I don't feel too good about it now." 

Kara shrugged. "My – I know people who do stuff like you. You have to put the job first sometimes. It wasn't so bad; Ms Grant usually loses her cool at me once a day anyway. But, um, in the interests of full disclosure, Cat told me I have to cultivate you as a source. Not that I have the faintest idea how to do that." She picked at a take-out bag, embarrassed. "I wouldn't even want to do that. It sounds kind of gross." 

Daisy stood back and looked at her. She was barely recognisable as Supergirl, blushing and ducking her head, peering through those enormous glasses. "You know, it's actually a hell of a disguise," she said. "The glasses, the awkwardness… I see why you don't have to bother with a mask. 

Kara smiled and took the glasses off. "Glasses are fake, but the awkwardness is all me, I'm afraid." 

It turned out that Kara had an appetite to match Daisy's, so once they had demolished everything that she had brought, plus some leftover pizza in Kara's fridge, things were a lot less awkward. Dog Cops helped, and Daisy's enthusiastic explanation of the hints that build up to the big reveal about Sergeant Whisker's backstory. 

"I can't believe how invested I am in this show now," Kara said, cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the sofa.

Daisy lay with her head across Kara's thighs. "I know, right? If you don't watch it with someone who knows stuff, you miss so much. And who knows when we can do this again."

Kara pulled the soggy pizza box closer to them: one slice left. They both eyed it. 

"I have an enhanced metabolism," said Kara. "I need it." 

"I have to train with a woman who can kill me with her pinkie finger. This might be the last thing I eat before I die." Daisy reached out to snatch it, but Kara's hand was there much faster. Daisy's knuckles brushed the back of Kara's hand, and then hovered there, uncertain. 

"Don't kill me with your pinkie finger," said Kara, nervously. She didn't move her hand either. 

Daisy slipped her hand inside Kara's. "Don't worry, I'm nowhere near that level yet." They both watched the tangle of fingers, then Kara drew it closer to her, and tentatively bent to kiss it. Daisy leaned forward, close enough to press her lips to Kara's. She smiled, mid-kiss. "Is this what your boss meant, when she said to cultivate me?" 

Kara threw her arms around Daisy's shoulders and wrestled her to the ground. "Do not mention my boss when I'm trying to make out with a cute girl I just met this morning!" She bent over Daisy and kissed her with more enthusiasm, her mouth open and her hands in Daisy's hair. 

Daisy pulled her down and close, her hands spread across Kara's shoulder blades, so delicate for someone who could probably fly right through a building. Soon Kara had a hand on Daisy's hip, her fingers warm against the skin, while Daisy kissed the soft skin behind Kara's ear. 

The sound of Daisy's phone ripped through the cocoon of quiet they had built. Daisy reached out for it but didn't take her lips from Kara's skin. She craned her neck to read the message. It was from Mack. 

_Wheels up in thirty, Tremors. Be here, or be prepared to walk home._

"Ugh, I have to go," said Daisy, and sat up. Kara had somehow ended up across her lap. Daisy put her hands on that tiny waist and pulled her close. "How are you so strong and yet so petite?" she said. 

Kara stroked the muscles in Daisy's arm. "Metabolism, I guess," she said. "I wouldn't mind having more of these, though. Hey, if you don't mind flying with me, we can have a few extra minutes before you have to leave." 

"If I don't mind flying with you?" said Daisy, incredulous. "Do you not remember what I was doing when we met?" 

Kara laughed. "I don't know how you do that, even with a chute. The few times my power has skipped out on me, I was terrified to fall." 

"Ah," said Daisy, and strapped her bag on tight. "That means that we need to get out there and practice." She held out her arms and Kara, suddenly in her blue and red costume, gathered her up.


	2. Lights Will Guide You Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara's already seen the end of one world, and she knows the worst you can do is nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this the night of the election, when I just wanted someone to tell someone else it was all going to be okay. I think we all needed a bit of that.

For a person with super hearing, Kara could be pretty oblivious, so, what with her earbuds in and her mind on her latest story and the tube of cookie dough in her freezer, she didn't realise there was someone in her apartment when she got home. Not until Daisy came into the kitchen to say hi. 

Then, because she had super strength as well as super hearing, Kara accidentally crushed a cookie sheet between her hands in surprise. 

"I'm sorry," said Daisy. "I should have called, but I didn't trust the phone lines." 

Daisy was a mess: her clothes were rumpled, her eyes under all the black make-up were hollow, and her forearms were wrapped in smudged bandages that desperately needed changing. 

"Oh my God – what happened?" Kara glanced down at the crumpled metal in her hands, threw it into the sink, then rushed around the kitchen counter to give Daisy a hug. "You look – I mean, you look like you've had a really bad day." 

"Ouch," said Daisy. She tried to extract herself without using her hands, but gave up, standing entangled with Kara. "It's pretty complicated – is it okay if I crash here? Just for the night, I promise." 

"Of course!" said Kara. "What do you need? Do you want me to call anyone? Or… are you hurt?" Daisy had stopped moving, and sagged against Kara's chest. 

"No," said Daisy, and tried to straighten herself up. "I – I need to sleep, and I can't think straight. I ended up here, and you're the only person I know in National City, and so I came here but then you weren't here, which I should have anticipated…" Words spilled out of her in one long running sentence.

"Stop," said Kara. Taking care of someone was something she could definitely deal with. "First you're taking a shower. Then we're changing those bandages. And you're going to eat something decent with some vegetables in it." This was what her mother would tell someone in Daisy's state to do. Of course, then her mother would pull something delicious out of the oven, and Kara hadn't had time to shop in, like, well, she couldn't remember the last time she shopped. It might have been when her mother last came to visit, actually. Oh, well. At least there was frozen cookie dough. 

Daisy seemed happy to be bustled around the apartment, though, and while she was in the shower, Kara could scan the take-out menu for something that qualified as having vegetables, and more than the vegetables on pizza. 

She heard the water stop, but even after half an hour, Daisy didn't emerge from the bathroom. Kara slipped her glasses down her nose to check through the door that she was okay. Then she remembered it was wrong to do that, and knocked on the door instead.

"Hey, Daisy, how are you doing in there? Should I order dinner?" 

There was no sound from behind the door. Kara waited a few seconds, doing the silent dance of 'This is so awkward but I think you need help!' 

She knocked again. "Daisy? I'm coming in – I'm worried about you." 

Inside the bathroom, Daisy stood, clumsily wrapped in a towel held close to her body by one arm. She stared at Kara, miserable and ashamed. "Sorry, I think I ran out of energy. It's just – my wrists hurt so much, and I couldn't move them any more. And then I guess I didn't know what to do next." 

Kara's heart melted for her: she remembered this feeling, of being so tired and afraid and hopeless that you simply stopped moving completely. She'd only been a child in the last days of Krypton, but she remembered the endless futility of arguments and rumour and anger that came when nobody knew what was going to happen. 

"Here," said Kara. "Let me." She reached for her robe and draped it over Daisy's shoulders, held the sleeves so that Daisy could ease her injured arms into it, and wrapped a towel around Daisy's hair. "I'm going to find you some clothes, and then I'm going to help you get dry and dressed." 

Daisy opened her mouth to protest, and Kara summoned her best Mrs Danvers look to quell it. She was surprised that it worked: Daisy closed her mouth again, and simply nodded, wan but relieved. 

Kara patted Daisy dry, ran a comb gently through her tangled hair, and helped her dress. Daisy apologised again and again, until Kara told her to stop. 

"I want to help you," she said. "Please let me – you're my friend and you're in trouble, and you came here because you knew you'd be safe. So let me keep you safe and make you comfortable." She reached for her softest sweater, which had a big fluffy kitten on the front, but it had been her mom's and then Alex's and finally Kara's, and it was worn and soft and cosy. She expected Daisy to make some quip, but she didn't seem to notice, which made Kara even more worried. 

Once she'd eased a pair of thick warm socks over Daisy's feet, Kara propped her on the sofa and wrapped her in a blanket. Whenever Kara brushed against Daisy's wrists, which she tried really hard not to, but getting dressed kind of involved arms – Daisy winced and made a really sad noise, but didn't even try to stop Kara. Again, all very worrying, and not the Daisy that Kara met falling out of the sky with glorious abandon. 

"Do you want me to check them out?" she asked, when Daisy was curled up with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. "I don't know if you know, but I have x-ray vision." 

Daisy shrugged. "There's not much point," she said. "I can tell they're messed up." 

That wasn't a firm no, Kara reasoned, so she pushed her glasses down and scanned Daisy's arms, then gasped. The radius and ulna seemed to be shattering in slow motion: lines of stress fracture spread upwards to Daisy's elbows and into the humerus. "What happened?" she said, crouching down to gaze up at Daisy. "Why are you here, and not in a hospital?" 

Daisy smiled a crooked smile and shrugged deeper into the blanket. "I happened," she said. "And I'm not in a hospital because I don't want to be found right now. I'll get by." 

"Oh, Daisy," said Kara. "I don't want you to just get by. I want you to be safe." 

Daisy swallowed, and shook her head. "I don't get the luxury of safe right now," she said. "People are in danger." 

Kara sat gently on the sofa beside her. "What about Mac? Can I call him, maybe?" 

"Kara, I'm on my own," Daisy said, more gently than Kara expected from her expression. "I'm not in SHIELD anymore, I don't have back-up. I don't have anyone." 

Kara slipped an arm around her shoulder, so softly that it would be hard to believe she could punch a hole through a brick wall. Being super strong was easy; being super gentle took care and practice. "You have someone. You have me. Let me take care of you for a little while, at least." 

Chopsticks were definitely not an option, so Kara got some containers of soup from the local deli, and whipped up some grilled cheese to go with it. Daisy managed pretty well with a big mug she could hold against her chest and sip from. They didn't talk work or SHIELD or anything important, until Kara noticed Daisy's eyes were drooping between sentences. She lifted the cup away from Daisy's hands carefully. 

"Hey, do you think you'd be more comfortable in the bed than on the sofa?" she said. 

Daisy shook her head. "If you had seen some of the places I've been sleeping lately… Let's say the sofa is luxurious in comparison."

Kara laughed, mostly because this was the closest Daisy had come to her former quippy self. "Okay, but let me get a bunch of pillows for you, so you can get your arms comfortable." 

Kara's hearing must have picked up the game a little, because she woke in the night to the sound of all the doors rattling faintly. She sat upright in her bed, trying to figure out what was happening. Then she heard a muffled cry of distress, as if someone had their face pressed to a pillow, and she leapt up, running to the living room. 

Daisy's nightmare had set all the fixtures in the apartment rattling: the lights swayed, the glasses clinked in the kitchen, and a pile of books lay on the floor where they'd been jounced from the shelf. 

Kara perched on the arm of the sofa and gently stroked Daisy's hair. "Wake up," she said, softly. "It's only a bad dream, you're safe, I'm here." 

Even though she had tried to be gentle, Daisy woke with a start and with a final rumble, the television fell from the fixture and smashed. 

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," said Daisy, then the pain hit and she curled her knees to her chest and wailed, an anguished, hopeless sound. To Kara, the cry was thin and reedy and everything that Daisy shouldn't be. She slipped behind Daisy on the sofa and wrapped her arms around her, careful not to touch her wrists, but holding her tight while she cried. 

"It's okay," said Kara, even though it really wasn't, even though she didn't understand what was happening in Daisy's life right now. "It's just a TV, it's only a thing, it doesn't matter. You're what matters, keeping you safe is what matters. Shhh." 

After a long time, Daisy went quiet in Kara's arms, lying still and heavy and warm. "I lost someone," she said, eventually. "I made some really bad mistakes, and I'm trying to make up for it, but it's impossible. You can't make up for what I did, and now the world is slipping away from me."

Kara kissed the top of her head and rested her chin there. "Mistakes happen," she said. "I've made plenty of them. Maybe not like yours, but guess what?

Daisy moved her hand to swipe at her nose, moaned in pain and frustration. "What?" 

Kara reached behind her for the box of Kleenex, and passed Daisy a couple. "This is the truth about mistakes, the real truth. You make mistakes and you keep trying. That's the whole truth. I keep trying because I know for sure that the world won't end, not by my mistakes. I've been there, Daisy, when the world was ending, and the thing that did the most harm was not trying. Are you with me?"

Daisy dabbed her nose. "Um… it's kind of a complicated metaphor, and it's the middle of the night." 

"So," Kara kept going with her explanation. "If you're doing something instead of nothing, you're basically saving the world. It helps to think about that, when you feel small and useless and nothing changes ever. You do something, you take a step towards saving the world. Look at how much you've done, think about what that means." 

Daisy nestled back in her arms. "You know, you're full of wisdom. For a dork." 

Kara smiled, her lips against Daisy's head. "Wait, I am not a dork."

"First rule of Dork Club," said Daisy, sleepily. "Never deny your dorkdom." 

"Wouldn't that be the second rule of Dork Club?" asked Kara. "Because the first rule would be 'Never talk about Dork Club', right?" 

Daisy was so nearly asleep that if Kara didn't have super hearing, she wouldn't have heard the soft laugh. 

Kara was sure, as she was drifting off herself, that Daisy would be gone in the morning. She wished there was a way to convince her to stay, but making sure Daisy knew she could always find refuge here was a second prize she could live with. Do what you can. Save the world in small steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to lilacsigil for the beta.


End file.
